7
Gauging the future of health care
Maryjane Wurth: I think the whole mobile-health revolution―apps and the ability to diagnosis and send pictures and transfer data just with our little smart phones―is a whole other layer of technology that will fundamentally revolutionize health care. Dave Burda: The FDA is considering regulating health apps. Any predictions on where that will go? Ken Kaufman: It’s a terrible idea. It will slow down innovation in an industry that’s already been plagued by slow innovation. Let them roll.
Predictions
Dave Burda: I’d like to ask each of the panelists to write the big health care headline that will make the front page of the New York Times one year from today. Ed Hughes: Health care outcomes continue to improve and dramatically so. People are living longer and will continue to live longer. Read the obituaries in the New York Times.Last week the average age was somewhere like 92. This is not a random event. Health care outcomes will consistently improve―and much better thanwhat the health care industry is given credit for. We can all be proud of what we are accomplishing. That would be the continuing good news topic one year from now, 5 years, 10, or 20. Michael Sachs: One year from now will be the underrealized potential of the ACA relative to the exchanges. So basically 12 months from now, which will be June 2014, it will be how the health exchanges underperformed and didn’t meet expectations. Maryjane Wurth: The ACA is rated 50/50, that it’s a mess―the rollout of state insurance exchanges, expansion of coverage, the impact on providers. Ken Kaufman: Ten years from now, the hospital industry will be dominated by 250 large companies. We came together to meet market conditions, and it didn’t have anything to do with power or price.
Copyright © 2013. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.